JB/018/169/002

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Of the language employed in Algebra,
the whole of that part, in and by
which the existence of the species
of quantities called negative quantities
is affirmed and thereby asserted
is from beginning to end a source
of perplexity and confusion: of a
confusion which in few minds, if in
any, is ever compleatly dispelled. A
degree of certainty, and that not merely
equal to that on which the ordinary
causes of human life is obliged
to ground itself, but that infinitely
superior degree which is considered
as exclusively peculiar to mathematics,
is on these occasions ascribed to
propositions of which the falshood
is most palpable.

Of quantities each of them less
than nothing, the existence is all
along assumed: assumed by a
set of propositions every one of
which is a self-contradictory one,
involving a contradiction in
terms. Yet under this perplexing
and delusive veil, a quantity of
truth, and that useful and instructive,
is on most occasions, if not on
every occasion, concealed. What
on no one occasion ever does exist,
is a quantity less than nothing.
But what does exist, on every
occasion in which a quantity is exhibited
brought to view, in the character
of a negative quantity, howsoever,
is a quantity of which on
the occasion in question, is productive
of an effect opposite to that
produced by every quantity
which, in the character of a
positive quantity, is placed on
the opposite side of the account.

Identifier: | JB/018/169/002 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 18.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	018	Main Headings	chrestomathia
Folio number	169	Info in main headings field
Image	002	Titles
Category	copy/fair copy sheet	Number of Pages	2
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering
Penner		Watermarks	[[watermarks::smith & allnutt 1837 [britannia with shield emblem]]]
Marginals		Paper Producer	john symonds
Corrections	thomas southwood smith	Paper Produced in Year	1837
Notes public		ID Number	6578
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